


blood under the bridge

by allapplesfall



Category: The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Being a Lesbian is Fucking Beautiful and SOMEONE Needed to Say It, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Episode: s1e6 Iron in War, Someone Should've Given Hailey Yarner a Fucking Hug After This Ep So I Did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 14:59:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19814698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allapplesfall/pseuds/allapplesfall
Summary: “Hold on,” Millie says, and Hailey looks up at the ceiling. “You can talk to us.”Hailey’s voice cracks. “Yeah? What would I say?”Jean puts a hand on Hailey’s knee. “That’s what we’re asking you, dear.”Hailey flinches at the touch, her chin dimpling. “I–” She stiffens her upper lip, still staring at the ceiling. “I–” And then she can’t fight back the tears that slip down her cheeks, the way her face creases and she chokes out a sob and then another; she cries, that horrid, ugly kind of crying where she barely breathes and folds forward and tries to shrink into herself in a way that Hailey Yarner was never born to.





	blood under the bridge

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a lesbian and I vote you can't put a lesbian in so much pain without giving her catharsis!! So I gave it to her. 
> 
> Title is from "blood under the bridge" by fast rabbit.

“Hailey,” Millie says, as the night winds down. “Would you mind driving us home?”

Their welcome at the party seems to be very close to stayed. Iris, though a gracious host, keeps playing with the corner of an army-stamped envelope tucked at her hip. Every few minutes, her daughter leans over to whisper her a question—from the way Iris’s lip twitches, it’s the same one every time.

At Millie’s words, Hailey looks up from where she’s playing with Cadence, her brave smile flickering in the dim golden light of the outside lamps. “Oh, yeah,” she says, pushing herself up to standing. “Of course.”

“Leaving already?” Iris asks. Her shoulders relax a touch.

“My bedtime,” Jean says, wry. She takes Millie and Hailey’s dishes and stacks them. “Thank you, Iris, for your hospitality.”

Iris smiles. “Jean, leave those. I’m capable of stacking a couple plates. Have a safe trip home, you hear?”

“We will.” Jean squeezes her arm.

Millie’s mouth tips up. “I think someone,” she murmurs, nodding towards Cadence, whose head, now that she can’t feed off Hailey’s energy, has started to droop, “would like a very special bedtime story.”

Iris’s hand drifts down to her waist again. “That she would. Good night, all of you.”

As they move to leave, Iris reaches out to Hailey, lays a hand on her shoulder. She holds the girl’s gaze for a long moment—long enough that Millie has to fight the urge to look away. Finally, Iris nods and steps away to lead them out. Hailey blinks hard.

When they reach the door, Millie says, “Thank you for having us,” setting off another round of thank yous and good nights. Iris stands at the stoop as the three of them troop down the steps to the street, still and shadowed beneath the cloak of the overcast San Francisco night sky. Hailey’s bright turquoise car waits for them. They climb in, Hailey at the wheel, Millie in the diagonal backseat, and Jean in the passenger side. The keys jingle as they jam rather clumsily into the ignition.

Within a minute, they’ve begun trundling along through the dark, hilly streets.

“Well, that was a long couple of days,” Jean remarks.

Millie huffs out a laugh. Interrogated, almost deported, seeing her cousin beaten bloody, caught in a shoot-out in a jazz club—long couple of days, indeed.

“You can say that again.”

Jean and Millie exchange a look in the rear-view mirror. Hailey’s words lack her usual ebullience, resilience—they grate through the air, sharpened with bitterness or exhaustion or both.

From the backseat, Millie can make out fingerprints, now darkened to blue-purple, creeping up over Hailey’s shirt collar. The adhesive bandage on her hand dimples every time she turns the wheel.

Millie’s throat clogs. She hears Lucy, years ago, wretched and traumatized, talk about that poor dead girl in the cellar that her mind will never, ever let her forget; she sees her battered face, bruises stained like wine across her cheek. And Hailey’s _younger_ than Lucy was then. Hailey is so, so young.

Must trying to stop young girls’ deaths always end up destroying some others in the process?

“Hailey,” Millie says, voice gentle. “Are you…are you alright?”

Hailey doesn’t answer. She sets her jaw, lips wobbling, and stares out at the road.

After two more turns, Jean tries again: “Hailey.”

“I’m fine,” Hailey snaps, frustrated and tearful and so clearly not. She swallows, tries for a shaky, guilty smile. “Sorry. Almost home, promise.”

A few more minutes pass in silence, before the car pulls up to Edward’s place. Hailey kicks open her door, coming around to open Millie and Jean’s with a stubborn chivalry.

Millie and Jean get out, folding their coats back around themselves. All three of them stand on the curb in the dark. Deep circles ring Hailey’s eyes. She trembles, fists balled up to try and hide it.

“Would you like to stay at ours, tonight?” Millie offers, tentative. “Or at least come up, have a cup of tea.”

Hailey shifts into the glow of the streetlight, and her face crumples. Tears, golden, streak down her cheeks, dripping down off her chin. She pauses, hedging, before she nods, lips folding to suppress a sob. Millie goes to squeeze her arm—Hailey has always struck her as someone who should be touchy—and Hailey begins to lean into it but then jerks herself back.

“Alright,” Jean says softly. “Let’s go in, shall we?”

Millie nods. She leads them up the main path and through the door, up the stairs to their living room. Once inside, new lock twisted safely behind them, she takes her and Jean’s coats and hangs them, silently holding out a hand for Hailey’s. Shaking fingers stumble over the buttons, taking longer than they should before they hand it over.

Jean moves to the couch, sits.

“Come on,” Millie prompts, guiding Hailey to Jean’s right. “You look like you could use a something a little stronger than tea.”

Hailey takes a seat. She nods.

Millie moves to the kitchen and sorts through the disarray, cupboards still thrown into chaos by the earlier ransacking. Only slightly darker rings along the shelf bottoms reveal where some of Edward’s grudging welcome-wine stood, but her searching fingers find purchase on the cool glass of the gin bottle hidden behind the flour. She sets it on the counter. Fetching some of the unshattered glasses and the Schweppes from the fridge, she mixes sorry, rushed excuses for gin and tonics.

Jean and Hailey haven’t been talking—Hailey’s been drilling holes into her knees with her red-rimmed eyes as Jean watches her, sad and resigned and tired. When Millie sets the drinks in front of them with two clinks, they glance up. Hailey grabs for the drink automatically. Watching her drink gin and tonic is painful in the same way watching her drink tea was painful—she gulps it down, with no respect for the palate of the gin nor the consequences for her stomach.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, setting the empty glass back down. “For imposing, and all—I should go.”

“Hold on,” Millie says, and Hailey looks up at the ceiling. “You can talk to us.”

Hailey’s voice cracks. “Yeah? What would I say?”

Jean puts a hand on Hailey’s knee. “That’s what we’re asking you, dear.”

Hailey flinches at the touch, her chin dimpling. “I–” She stiffens her upper lip, still staring at the ceiling. “I–” And then she can’t fight back the tears that slip down her cheeks, the way her face creases and she chokes out a sob and then another; she cries, that horrid, ugly kind of crying where she barely breathes and folds forward and tries to shrink into herself in a way that Hailey Yarner was never born to.

Jean rubs her back. Millie brushes loose strands of hair out of the way of Hailey’s mouth, ajar and stuttering.

They share a look over her head.

Eventually, Hailey’s gasping subsides, sobs swallowed down and tears leaking, more than falling, from her eyes. She presses trembling hands to her face, cheeks flushed and embarrassed beneath her fingers.

“Sorry.” The word falls to the floor, smushed and quiet.

“God,” says Millie, her own voice thicker than usual, “don’t apologize.”

“We’re here,” adds Jean.

“I–” Hailey shifts, eyes widening when she realizes Jean’s hand rests on her back. She flinches, but Jean doesn’t move. Letting out a small, cracked sigh, she slumps into the couch. She breathes—once, twice. Shudder. Three times. “I left home young,” she starts. “Small towns have this way of sniffing out different, and….” She stares, glassy-eyed, at the far wall. “I got sniffed out. A farmhand found me and Laura Owens, behind the far shed. My daddy never got his belt out quicker. Said nobody under his roof was gonna be a... I jumped on a train three days later.” She tries for a wobbly smile. “Best decision of my life.”

The joke fails as tears drip onto her hands, and _oh_.

How didn’t Millie see this?

Millie wrote letters to Susan until her hand hurt, fell into beds in foreign countries with women who she knew she’d never see past sunrise. She shuffled into some other girl’s Bletchley quarters at a carefully calculated hour and spoke just enough about her male suitors to discourage any official interest in her personal life. And while some of it bruised, over the years, rubbed raw over broken hearts and secrets, military and personal, Millie can navigate her own freedom. She even thrives—in a way, the drama and silliness and subtleties suit her.

But Hailey.

Hailey, who says _men_ and _marriage_ with a certain kind of disdain and never wears makeup and ran away from home at sixteen.

Hailey, who carries everything on the outside, loud and brash and tactless and oh so very fucking _young_ —

Hailey shudders again. Jean gives her shoulder a signature Jean squeeze, one that dispels any doubt Millie may have had about whether Jean’s adopted Hailey as one of Her Girls yet. Millie, on her other side, rubs her back.

“I’m _sick_ of being a _coward_ ,” Hailey chokes out, “and I know I’m stupid but– but but– just I hurt so _bad_ –”

When she pauses, overcome again, Millie brushes her hair back from her face.

“Dear,” Jean says, “I promise, no one who’s met you could ever think you’re a coward.”

“That cop today definitely didn’t,” Millie adds, joking voice slightly scratchy, “when you smashed that chair right over him.”

Hailey huffs a laugh, wet and gross with snot. Her hand rises to her neck. “I called those Mattachine men cowards,” she says, glancing at Jean.

“You did,” Jean agrees.

“They said they’re the only…They’re still standing because they act as secret as they do. And Sarge thinks I should keep quiet. About being…” She glances from Jean to Millie and back with sudden fear, so alien on Hailey’s face.

“It’s alright,” Millie promises. “I…” She shrugs. “Me too.”

“You?” Hailey blinks. “But, Detective Bryce…”

“I like both,” she says, chin dimpling. She holds the girl around the shoulders, squeezing lightly. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Hailey. It’s wonderful. No matter what people say—we women can do an awful lot of things better, can’t we?”

“So you don’t think…” Hailey shifts, drops her eyes to the ground, and grits her teeth.

“Think Iris is right?” asks Jean. Millie glances at her. Iris has always, first and foremost, been Hailey’s sergeant. Jean gave too many cautionary warnings to Millie and the other girls to not understand that.

Hailey nods, eyes still fixed to the carpet.

Jean sighs. “Well, we can’t tell you it’s not a risk. You know better.”

“It might affect how easy it is to get work,” Millie adds, thinking back to what Edward had told her. “You shouldn’t tell your landlord, because they’ve got the power to terminate your lease. But we wouldn’t stop caring about you. Iris wouldn’t stop caring.”

“Marcus might.”

“Marcus might need time,” Millie concedes.

“He wouldn’t call me Haybale anymore. Or want me around Cadence. I love that little girl—I love all of them. I’d lose them.”

"You don’t know that,” Jean says. “The man’s known you for what, ten years? He could come around. And you’re being silly if you don’t think Iris will fight for you.”

She digs her nails into her thighs. “I just wanna be _me_ without feeling sick for trapping it inside or because other people tell me I am. I wanna love my new family and fix machines that go broke and meet girls and have fun with ‘em and meet other girls and just be friends or roommates and not have anyone run off ‘cause I’m a sick dirty rug-muncher and I want to stop being a stupid coward and—”

“Breathe,” Jean cuts in.

She coughs and sucks in air, ragged and red-eyed.

Millie rubs her back again. She marvels at how one young brash American girl can so easily melt though their British reservations—she can’t remember the last time either of them _comforted_ this much.

They sit for a while, listening to Hailey’s breaths rattle.

Finally, Jean says, “You didn’t think those men were dirty or sick. We didn’t, either.”

“They’re not.”

“Right. Just like you’re not.” She shifts to look her in the eye. “You’re strong and so brave, Hailey, and incredibly kind. Whatever obstacles the world throws at you, you can handle them. Your life is far from over, trust me. You can live it how you choose to.”

Hailey exhales. Jean’s words, slow and clear and heartfelt, wring most of the tension out of her. Some of her fear of contact has ebbed, too. She leans into Jean’s side. She mumbles, “I didn’t know you could go sappy.”

Millie smiles at Jean, over her head.

Jean twitches her lip, wry. “Only under duress, dearie.”

“Sorry for duressing you, then.”

“I’ll live.”

Millie huffs a small laugh.

Hailey shuts her eyes, the bags beneath which have only grown more pronounced as the clock creeps towards midnight. “Thank you. For being nice.”

“I wasn’t being nice, Hailey, I was being honest.”

“Well… Thanks.”

“Of course. Will you sleep here tonight? It’s awfully late to be heading back.”

“You can help us fix the place back up tomorrow,” adds Millie, sensing hesitation at the charity. “God knows we could use the extra pair of hands.”

A pause.

“Don’t much want to see my roommates,” Hailey concedes. “And I’ve slept plenty of worse places than your couch, that’s for sure.”

 _Don’t be silly_ , Millie almost says, _take the bed_ , but exhaustion presses hard on her sternum and Hailey juts her jaw out just far enough to ward off the argument. Instead, Millie rises to grab the linens to make up the couch for the night.

As she does, Jean tries her gin and tonic, long forgotten on the coffee table. She wrinkles her nose. Millie rolls her eyes; she’s turned Jean into a snob.

“Are you going to be alright out here?” Jean asks, once Millie finishes throwing on a blanket.

Hailey nods. “Asleep before my head hits the pillow, just wait.”

“We’ll be right behind you, I suspect,” says Millie. She leans down and kisses Hailey’s cheek, like she used to kiss Edward’s when he would frighten before bed. “Sleep well.”

Hailey grabs Millie’s arm, lightly, enough to have Millie look into her eyes. Something passes between them.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Millie whispers, one last time. Then she crosses the dimly lit apartment, the rectangles of streetlight on the floor blurring beneath her feet. Faintly aware of the quiet murmurs of Jean and Hailey’s good nights, she finds her bedroom and falls into bed, still in her dayclothes. Sleep claims her within minutes.

-

She wakes up for her diner shift the next morning to find the apartment spotless, save for a couple of their appliances clustered on the table. Hailey smiles at her from where she sits, hands deep in their toaster.

“Morning,” Millie says, moving to set the kettle to boil.

“Mornin’,” Hailey echoes.

“You didn’t have to clean that all up, Hailey.”

“I did,” she answers simply. Her face, while still pale and drawn in the morning light, no longer trembles like fragile glass.

Millie nods. Once the kettle whistles and she drops the teabag into her cup, she sits at the table across from her. She watches her work—her hands and her eyes and her mouth dancing, twisting, intuiting. After a minute, she takes a sip of her tea.

She almost says something. Almost says—whatever happens, you’ll always have _this_ , the ability to tinker and fix things and make them whole. But Hailey’s fingers (breakable, just like Edward’s bones) catch the light, and Millie knows that’s not true. Hundreds of things could stop her from doing what she loves.

They sit, for a few minutes.

Eventually, Hailey’s brows, which were set in a focused line, flatten out. “I’m gonna kick my roommates out,” she says.

“Oh?”

The corners of Hailey’s eyes crinkle. “I never wanna live with a man again.”

Millie crooks her lips. “A fine goal.”

“It’s who I am,” Hailey says, words firm and hopeful and a little rueful, too. She spreads her oily hands across the table, brushing over metal parts, and glances down at her clothes—the extra coveralls she keeps in the car with her toolkit. “This. I’m this type of girl.”

“Thank god for that,” Millie answers. She smiles at her over her cup of tea.

Hailey looks back up. She grins.

By the time Jean emerges, they own the finest toaster in the country.

**Author's Note:**

> Is this canon-compliant w/ eps 7 and 8? Nah. Do I really care? Nah. Flash-forward a year and I hope you all know that Hailey is a proud subscriber of "The Ladder" and attends DOB meetings! 
> 
> If you liked it, please let me know <33


End file.
